The true ROI of letting influencers run your content production

The true ROI of letting influencers run your content production

Content marketing is still king online, and influencer-based native advertising is one of the leading ways to make the most of it. Native advertising refers to the purchase of relevant, quality sponsored content to be displayed on blogs, websites and social networks. It can take the form of ads with a social context, in-feed units, recommendations “From Around the Web”, promoted listings, paid searches, standard ads with native elements, and custom campaigns.

Content Marketing on Steroids

Influencer marketing is a cut above the rest of these approaches. It allows brands to increase reader engagement and get their point across with a deeper impact in an increasingly busy space. Fast Company reported that ad engagement rates for premium native advertising is over three times higher than other types of online advertisements.

Influencer-based native advertising companies use their relationships with influencers in a range of industries to enhance client brands. In many cases, they are propelled to the realm of thought leadership. However, the ROI of content produced by the influencer isn’t just about engagement and lead generation. Influencer-based native advertising allows for organic amplification of a message as online WOM spreads like wildfire.

Highly Targeted Performance

Influencer-based native advertising can assist companies in reaching untapped parts of their marketing funnel. Through these articles, it is now possible to reach a largest audience. Potential consumers can become aware of products and services they otherwise might not have found. Hyper-targeting features, especially within social networks, can assist in helping to zero in on the ideal client while lowering the cost of lead generation.

On another hand, influencer-based native advertising gives the opportunity to collaborate with Influencers. It can revitalize your content by adopting several editorial angles or working on a vertical approach (one editorial angle) shared in several language in different country.

Influencer-based native advertising makes marketers win at the productivity game because they are able to benefit from the influencers’ work as well as their vast existing networks.

Partnering with Influencers

The key to successful native advertising is the creation of high-quality content with utility for the reader. If this is delivered, then sponsored ads are embraced by most readers. As presented in this infographic, 45% people trust the information written on a specialized blog (be it sponsored articles or not). Also, the average click through rate (CTR) for influencer-made articles is higher than any other channel (10 to 13% for an Upfluence Campaign against 1-7% for Google Search or 0.5% for Facebook Ads).

You can find a Influencer Marketing service with dashboards available to monitor campaign results overall and per article. This one is from publishr.io

Threefold Native Advertising Performance

On top of the time saved on copywriting, the actual reach of influencer based native advertising is threefold. Publication will, of course, reach the media’s natural audience first. However, influencers tend to adopt a cross-media strategy online: being present on one main media, and developing alternate communities on various social media platforms. Last, good quality content will generate user engagement. This engagement is the perfect opportunity to leverage each readers’ individual influence.

The average native advertising article is shared 25.11 times by its readers to their personal social media platforms, each publication shared generating more engagement. If Facebook (53% of shares) and Twitter (29% of shares) lead the way, readers will, depending on the industry, share on Google+, LinkedIn or other platforms (Pinterest, Stumble upon, Reddit, etc).

Considering that people have an average of 208 followers on Twitter and 338 friends on Facebook, each native advertising piece gains an extra average reach of 7,015 people. Not bad.

Again, content that is useful, relevant and worthwhile is key, and influencer-based ads all but guarantee this. Done well, this type of advertising adds genuine value and can propel Word of Mouth and a branding strategy to the next level.

One last advantage should be taken into account in your influencer based Native ROI: online reputation. High quality native advertising publications will necessarily rank well on your brand search engine queries. Hence, it will strengthen your brand image on the long run and can, in some cases, bury bad press further down Google search engine result pages.

Here is an example of the Google Search Engine Result Page (SERP) for the query INOX Victorinox, a new product name, placed natively in the industry’s greatest media, over-indexing any other publications. See full case study here.

Wrapping it all up

Overall, identifying the impact of an influencer campaign is also very easy. Advertising metrics can be measured and analyzed to fine tune the campaign and confirm that it is having the desired effect. These metrics can be either editorial metrics related to your content such as visits on the page or clicks to the post, time spent on the article; conversion rate (…) or business metrics that show how valuable your content is for your brand (Cost per Click, Cost per Lead, Return on Investment… ).

As tempting as it may be for marketers to determine ROI solely by the number of sales that Native Advertising generates, you should take a step back and take into account the following:

Brand awareness, reads and engagement with the content piece,

Clics, traffic management and lead generation,

Indirect Social Media exposure, and brand ambassadors,

Indirect SEO boost, and online reputation,

Leverage press thanks to native advertising publications,

and many more.

Are you ready to make influencer marketing work for your brand? Contact Upfluence to learn more.

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